I feel a bit sorry for Barkley, he's not done much wrong other than want to leave and has conducted himself very well. If you try to take the rose tinted glasses off, financially he could have similar terms to stay, but it's a much better opportunity to win trophies in a short career. Lukaku and Stones left to pursue bigger ambitions, it's up to the club to agree terms with other clubs for transfer or match ambitions, the club has done neither.

Has been hanging over the club for over a year now, but we didn't give him a new deal when he wanted one. Koeman pushed him towards the exit, Koeman's exit was opportunity to bring him back in. Hiring Allardyce will not have given any hope of us making improvements in the near future, if anything it's pushed hopes of achieving things back a year or so.

We aren't matching his ambitions as a club, we've not shown him the respect of a key player and if you think we haven't missed him this season, you're watching a different game. He's not going to become a world great, but I can see him working well with Willian, Hazard and Morata and becoming a key player for them. He'll need game time to build relationships and understanding with other key players, but being surrounded by better players and more options will improve his game.

This is a load of BS, Stones and Lukaku were more admirable, they stated they wanted to leave, Barkley has had a contract on the table for 2 years and continually refused to state his desire to leave and didnt until he was entering his last year. Everton have given him whatever he wanted, if he didnt want to stay fine, just have the balls to say it and hand in a transfer request. He is gutless and knew he had no chance of going to a team above where we are unless he ran his contract down to a position where is he relatively cheap, and a steal now. To say he has conducted himself well is farcical imo, unless you're a Chelsea fan that is!!

That said the club should have sold him 2 years ago when he started assing us around!

He's gone, we've got a few quid and we move on. He's not played for so long people have more or less forgotten about him anyway so let's put the money to good use towards a guy to score us a few goals and focus on how we get this team passing the ball again now.

He's gone, we've got a few quid and we move on. He's not played for so long people have more or less forgotten about him anyway so let's put the money to good use towards a guy to score us a few goals and focus on how we get this team passing the ball again now.

Lukaku and Stones didn't run down their contract and screw us out of money to earn some extra coin, even if they did it wouldn't be as bad because they're not boyhood blues.He did get offered a new deal, a very good deal, we've never failed to offer him a deal when he wanted one. It was probably bad timing by the club and should have been made 6 months earlier (as it coincided with the start of a turbulent relationship between Ross and Koeman), but I've not heard that he asked for a new deal before our offer.

I'd argue that Koeman didn't show him much respect in 1 press conference, not the club. The club have tried to bend over backwards for him. Any half decent creative midfielder would have helped up this season.

That's what they would have done if we hadn't sold them, all of them wanted to leave, but wanted to play until that happened. Lukaku was talking about it openly for years if we didn't start challenging he was off. Stones and Barkley never said anything publicly, I respect that as a difficult but more respectful position to take. Barkley was going to be sold until he got injured, the club had been putting public pressure on him for months to sign or be sold.

We protected the value in Lukaku's contract like rabid accountants, we would never let that get lower than 2 years, and we spent months getting 99.9999% of the way publicly with Lukaku while Barkley was running down a year lower in the background. The years since Barkley last signed a contract, he had become a far more important player for us and his contract at the moment might not be much more than 40K. All that time we've not seen fit to reward his role in the team financially, he's not going to win trophies this season or next, the good players have left and he's getting dropped and made an example of by Koeman when he has a bad game or doesn't shit golden eggs.

Absolutely it was Koeman more than the club, but the manager becomes the club, he decides how you fit in, your opportunities, the direction of the club. The chairman, the board, the fans and Barkley wanted Barkley to stay, Koeman never rushed to offer him a new deal, he had 2 years left when he came in, he took him for granted and never appeared to rate him. I think Barkley would have potentially stayed after Koeman was sacked, but I don't think Allardyce does anything to change his mind.

I agree to a certain extent, although its a chicken and egg thing isnt it? If we had a fit squad with those players in it id say we wouldnt be far off the top 4, maybe if they'd have stayed a bit longer things would be different?We might not have invested like we did without those sales but who knows? I think what is clear as its all about the here and now, no more building for 5 years etc

That's what they would have done if we hadn't sold them, all of them wanted to leave, but wanted to play until that happened. Lukaku was talking about it openly for years if we didn't start challenging he was off. Stones and Barkley never said anything publicly, I respect that as a difficult but more respectful position to take. Barkley was going to be sold until he got injured, the club had been putting public pressure on him for months to sign or be sold.

We protected the value in Lukaku's contract like rabid accountants, we would never let that get lower than 2 years, and we spent months getting 99.9999% of the way publicly with Lukaku while Barkley was running down a year lower in the background. The years since Barkley last signed a contract, he had become a far more important player for us and his contract at the moment might not be much more than 40K. All that time we've not seen fit to reward his role in the team financially, he's not going to win trophies this season or next, the good players have left and he's getting dropped and made an example of by Koeman when he has a bad game or doesn't shit golden eggs.

Absolutely it was Koeman more than the club, but the manager becomes the club, he decides how you fit in, your opportunities, the direction of the club. The chairman, the board, the fans and Barkley wanted Barkley to stay, Koeman never rushed to offer him a new deal, he had 2 years left when he came in, he took him for granted and never appeared to rate him. I think Barkley would have potentially stayed after Koeman was sacked, but I don't think Allardyce does anything to change his mind.

Seems like you're just playing devil's advocate.

Stones asked for a transfer request and we didn't sell him, and he still played for us until he got his move.

Koeman and Ross' relationship was blown way out of proportion. Ross was more often than not first name on the team sheet, and actually got the best out of Ross Barkley. He just couldn't deal with a little bit of tough love or minor criticism. The Wayne Rooney's and Steven Gerrards of old had the world on their shoulders at this stage of their careers.

The truth is that the lads soft, incapable of making decisions on the field and off the field and living with the consequences. Be it storming down the tunnel at Wembley because he thought the fans had boo'd him, or getting lamped by a lad half his size for being a cunt.

Let's just face it, he's not as good as we thought he'd be. And this whole thing has been lead by an agent. Ross isn't capable of orchestrating something like this.